I had lived in the same place my whole life, moved into the small town of Dillard when I was one year old. I had always known the safety of sidewalks and neighborhood watch and being able to skip three steps and be at my childhood friend's back door. I knew bike rides, and I knew Halloween, and I knew my mothers wardrobe.
As I grew older, everything stayed the same. It was still the same. My father was still lying, my mother still cried, my brother always silent, and I was still me. I was still just me. I got bigger, but I was the same.
I just wondered a lot. Maybe it wasn't good for me, but I started to think about everything. I never told anybody what I thought about.
I did not tell anybody that I thought about the trees, and why they could be so still one day and be swaying back and forth the next, thin limbs doing a little dance of their own. I did not tell anybody that my mind was full of trees. Because that was so stupid.
I spent a lot of time outside. Outside of a lot of things. I liked being outside of my own mind, seeing myself. Seeing how I see things. I loved to breath fresh air. But I kept wondering why there was air to breath. And I kept wondering why I was breathing that air. And I kept wondering what I was doing, what was I supposed to be doing?
I loved walking home from school in the fall. Even a block away from the house, I would feel safer surrounded by the sound of crunching dry leaves than I could in my own bed. I didn't know why I felt that way. Don't know why I still do.
